Researchers from St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital of Columbia University in New York City published a study in Tuesday’s issue of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, according to which the severity of heart attacks has dropped in recent years, a fact that may have contributed to fewer heart attack deaths during 1987 and 2002.

 

The study was led by Dr. Merle Myerson, director of the cardiovascular disease prevention program at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital. He and his colleagues looked at data from more than 10,000 first heart attacks that occurred in four separate parts of the country from 1987 to 2002.

 

The study found a decrease in the heart attack death rate from 5.3 percent in 1987 to 3.8 percent in 2002. A report released last month by the American Heart Association, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health had similar results: deaths caused by heart attacks and strokes have declined by about 30 percent since 1999 most probably due to better control of cholesterol and blood pressure, declining smoking and better medical treatments.

 

The findings of the study suggest “that better prevention and better management in the hospital have contributed to the reduction in deaths,” Dr. Myerson said.

 

More exactly, better control of blood pressure and cholesterol, (two main risk factors for heart disease), as well as improvements in hospital management may lessen the severity if somebody has a heart attack.

 

However, there was no improvement at all in the time to get to the hospital after heart attack symptoms set in.

 

The findings come from the ongoing Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study, done in North Carolina, Maryland, Minnesota and Mississippi. They seem very encouraging considering the fact that heart disease affects one in three Americans and remains the No. 1 cause of death in the United States.